How To Make Xmas Dinner, Sans Murder, Confusion or Smarm?
December 6, 2014 3:32 AM Subscribe
Buzzfeed has a post detailing the cooking schedule for Thanksgiving dinner. Does same exist for Christmas?
I adore Buzzfeed's Thanksgiving cooking schedule - it breaks cooking such a special meal down into clear, easy steps that an actual human might follow. I am looking for something similar to enact for Christmas dinner.
I've looked around online for a similar schedule that would cover a traditional Irish/UK Xmas dinner: turkey, ham, sprouts, roast spuds, mashed spuds, stuffing, gravy and dessert. If it includes mince pies/Xmas cake/trifle/something else, then fantastic.
What I found is just overly complicated or, even worse, have that smarmy-smirky air from the likes of Nigella Lawson or Rachel Allen or (insert US equivalent). No, I won't brine a whole turkey or boil the carcass to make my own stock, but I will stick it a turkey into an oven until it's cooked.
There's nothing really on Amazon, either. I'm literally looking for a blog post/book/pamphlet with the title of this question. Can anyone help? Or share the bare-bones schedule (simply, please!) of how you make Xmas Day dinner?
I adore Buzzfeed's Thanksgiving cooking schedule - it breaks cooking such a special meal down into clear, easy steps that an actual human might follow. I am looking for something similar to enact for Christmas dinner.
I've looked around online for a similar schedule that would cover a traditional Irish/UK Xmas dinner: turkey, ham, sprouts, roast spuds, mashed spuds, stuffing, gravy and dessert. If it includes mince pies/Xmas cake/trifle/something else, then fantastic.
What I found is just overly complicated or, even worse, have that smarmy-smirky air from the likes of Nigella Lawson or Rachel Allen or (insert US equivalent). No, I won't brine a whole turkey or boil the carcass to make my own stock, but I will stick it a turkey into an oven until it's cooked.
There's nothing really on Amazon, either. I'm literally looking for a blog post/book/pamphlet with the title of this question. Can anyone help? Or share the bare-bones schedule (simply, please!) of how you make Xmas Day dinner?
Here's how I would do it:
Step 1: make the desert in advance. Whatever it may be, this will work much better than trying to make it in the kitchen the same day as everything else.
Step 2: Bird and meat in the oven. For the last hour of cooking, stick the baked potatoes in there too. Take them out with the bird.
Step 3: While the meat is cooking, do all the stovetop things. Boil and mash the potatoes, cook the brussels sprouts, etc.
Step 4. After the turkey comes out, make gravy from the drippings. You can do the same for the ham. This will not take long, and give the bird a little time to cool before carving.
As for the stuffing, it depends on whether you plan on putting it in the bird or not. If it's in the bird, the timing is obvious. If not, it should go in the oven about the same time as the potatoes in step 2.
posted by Gneisskate at 6:00 AM on December 6, 2014 [2 favorites]
Step 1: make the desert in advance. Whatever it may be, this will work much better than trying to make it in the kitchen the same day as everything else.
Step 2: Bird and meat in the oven. For the last hour of cooking, stick the baked potatoes in there too. Take them out with the bird.
Step 3: While the meat is cooking, do all the stovetop things. Boil and mash the potatoes, cook the brussels sprouts, etc.
Step 4. After the turkey comes out, make gravy from the drippings. You can do the same for the ham. This will not take long, and give the bird a little time to cool before carving.
As for the stuffing, it depends on whether you plan on putting it in the bird or not. If it's in the bird, the timing is obvious. If not, it should go in the oven about the same time as the potatoes in step 2.
posted by Gneisskate at 6:00 AM on December 6, 2014 [2 favorites]
How about this? At the end of the day it all depends on how big your bird is and how much you want/can do in the run up to Christmas day. Whatever guide you find can at best indicate cooking times and suggest order of things, it will never be foolproof because there are too many variables. Best to look at the various recommendations and work out what that means for your turkey, your specific dishes etc and write out your own plan.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:05 AM on December 6, 2014
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:05 AM on December 6, 2014
I'm not sure why that same Buzzfeed schedule won't work. It sounds like you're making the same dinner, plus ham.
posted by jaguar at 8:13 AM on December 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by jaguar at 8:13 AM on December 6, 2014 [3 favorites]
Here's my schedule. You obviously need to adjust this to whatever dishes you are preparing. And like Gneisskate, I do a lot of the prep work the day before, for things that can be cooked and quickly heated before serving (ie NOT mashed potatoes) or stored in the fridge till showtime.
I also do a high heat turned roast turkey which is ever so slightly more effort than a regular breast-up bird, but repays with absolutely juicy, flavorful meat. If you are cooking a bird under 14 lbs you should be able to manage it easily. It is excellent for those of us who prefer not to wake up at dawn to start cooking, as the whole thing takes about 2 1/2 hours to cook, max.
posted by ananci at 8:33 AM on December 6, 2014
I also do a high heat turned roast turkey which is ever so slightly more effort than a regular breast-up bird, but repays with absolutely juicy, flavorful meat. If you are cooking a bird under 14 lbs you should be able to manage it easily. It is excellent for those of us who prefer not to wake up at dawn to start cooking, as the whole thing takes about 2 1/2 hours to cook, max.
posted by ananci at 8:33 AM on December 6, 2014
There's a couple of tabs in this Holiday Planner spreadsheet template that i think are relevant to your needs, but you'll need to edit them to include all your other recipes, and maybe copy the Dinner Planner tab once or twice to schedule the previous days' prepping and cooking. You can copy in the relevant prep sections from that Buzzfeed list and tweak to your actual needs as well.
The upside of doing that work once is that in the future you will have to only make minor tweaks. You can use your own recipes and block them out to their own timing, make changes year-to-year to adjust for experience, etc.
I always use a spreadsheet, but it's a slapdash thing and largely re-created from scratch every year. I should take my own advice.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:12 AM on December 6, 2014
The upside of doing that work once is that in the future you will have to only make minor tweaks. You can use your own recipes and block them out to their own timing, make changes year-to-year to adjust for experience, etc.
I always use a spreadsheet, but it's a slapdash thing and largely re-created from scratch every year. I should take my own advice.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:12 AM on December 6, 2014
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If you want very minimalist, this is the schedule my brother sent me when we did a pre-Christmas Christmas (I was working Christmas Day) to ensure that I turned up at a time that didn't interfere with something important going on cooking-wise. No pudding, sorry!
07:26:00 - Turkey out of fridge
08:15:00 - oven on/stuff turkey
08:26:00 - turkey in oven
09:00:00 - Baste turkey
09:30:00 - Baste turkey
10:00:00 - Baste turkey
10:30:00 - Baste turkey
11:00:00 - Baste turkey/prep vegetables
11:30:00 - Baste turkey/cover with bacon/put bacon and sausages in oven
11:40:00 - veg in oven
12:00:00 - turkey out of oven to rest/make gravy
12:25:00 - heat up cranberry sauce
12:30:00 - Eat
posted by Vortisaur at 3:40 AM on December 6, 2014 [1 favorite]